If your business still has phone lines that plug into the wall, you have probably noticed the sales calls picking up. There is a reason: Openreach switches off the old analogue phone network on 31 January 2027, which is now four months away. We covered what the switch-off means in an earlier guide. This one is about the decision it forces: choosing the replacement.
The good news is that a modern phone system is genuinely better than what it replaces. The less good news is that the market is noisy, the pitches all sound the same, and businesses under deadline pressure sign things they regret. Here is how to choose well, without needing a telecoms degree.
What you are actually buying
A modern business phone system is VoIP, which simply means your calls travel over your internet connection instead of a dedicated copper line. Your numbers stay the same. What changes is where the system lives: in the cloud rather than in a box on your wall.
That shift is what unlocks the useful stuff. Your business number can ring a desk phone, a computer and a mobile app at the same time. Staff can answer the office line from home. Calls can route through menus and hunt groups. And you stop paying line rental for copper.
The features that actually matter
Brochures list dozens of features. For most small businesses, these are the ones that earn their keep:
- Keeping your numbers. Non-negotiable. Your number is part of your business. Any provider worth talking to handles the porting for you.
- Call routing that matches how you work. Menus, hunt groups, out-of-hours behaviour, voicemail to email. Simple to set up, transformative day to day.
- A proper mobile app. The office number in staff pockets, so working from home or on site does not mean giving out personal mobiles.
- Integration with what you already use. If your team lives in Microsoft Teams, calling can go through Teams itself. Systems like 3CX and Horizon suit different setups. The right answer depends on how you actually work, not on the badge.
- Call recording, if your industry needs it. Easy natively in cloud systems, painful to bolt on later.
The two things that matter more than features
Here is what the brochures skip. A VoIP system is only as good as two unglamorous foundations.
First, your internet connection. Calls now ride your broadband, so a struggling connection means choppy audio and dropped calls no matter how good the phone system is. It is worth understanding whether your connection is up to it, and what happens to your phones when the internet goes down, before you move, not after.
Second, who you call when something breaks. If your phones, broadband and IT come from three suppliers, a fault becomes a game of pass-the-parcel while your business sits on hold. One accountable partner for the lot removes the finger-pointing entirely.
Questions to ask any provider
Take this list into every conversation and the pitches sort themselves out quickly:
- Who handles porting our numbers, and how long will it take?
- What is the all-in monthly cost per user, including handsets, minutes and support?
- How long is the contract, and what happens at the end of it?
- What happens to our calls if our internet goes down?
- When something breaks at 9am on a Monday, exactly who do we call?
A good provider answers all five without flinching. Evasion on any of them tells you what you need to know.
The traps to avoid
Panic-signing a long contract. As the deadline gets closer, expect pressure tactics. A five-year term signed in a hurry is a long time to live with the wrong system.
"Free" handsets. Hardware is never free. It is baked into a longer contract or a higher monthly cost. Ask for the numbers separately so you can see what you are really paying.
The cheapest per-seat price. The gap between providers is rarely the technology, it is what happens after go-live. A pound a month saved per user buys a lot of frustration if support is a ticket queue in another time zone.
Do not leave it until December
Number porting takes weeks, not days. Installation and training take time to schedule. And as January approaches, every provider's engineers will be booked solid with everyone else who left it late. Moving now means moving calmly, on your timetable rather than Openreach's.
How we help
We design and run business phone systems for Leicester businesses, Teams Calling, 3CX and Horizon among them, and because we also look after the connectivity underneath and the IT around it, the whole thing has one number to call when you need help. If you have an existing system you like, we also offer maintenance and support to keep it healthy through the transition.
If you are staring at a pile of phone system quotes, or have not started and are quietly aware of the date, we are happy to give you a straight recommendation for your setup. No pressure tactics, we promise. There are four months left to do this properly.